Here's a great story, submitted via the feedback form from Ryan, a SparkFun customer:

Several months ago I started dating a

lovely girl from the next town over. Things went very well from the
start, with one exception - she, being afraid of the dark, cannot
sleep without the TV on, and I, being easily entertained and
distracted, cannot sleep with the TV on. After a bit of disagreement,
she proposed that I ought to purchase a night-light, and that might
solve the problem. I asked her what kind of a night-light she had in
mind, and she mentioned that it would be extremely cool to have a
blue one.

Having just seen the killer blue LEDs

on sale at Sparkfun, my brain starting spinning. I could purchase a
boring, mass-produced night-light at the neighborhood grocery store
for two dollars, or I could spend quite a bit more and order some fun
new goodies from Sparkfun and design an LED-powered night-light from
scratch.

Needless to say, I chose the latter. I
purchased a fresh, new bread-board, some components, a bag full of
those great LEDs, a few different proto-boards, new spools of wire
and a few other odds and ends. Several days later, I spread it all
out on my workbench and ended up creating what has got to be the most
expensive, but certainly one of the most awesome, night-lights ever.

The circuit itself is dirt-simple, DC

circuits 101 kind of stuff, but it works spectacularly, looks great,
does an amazing job of lighting up a room, and has ended all
disagreements about the TV.

…Plus, now my girlfriend thinks
I’m some kind of genius. I showed her the schematic and insisted
that it’s the most basic of all kid stuff electronics, but she
still thinks it’s amazing.

Thank you a hundred million times
Sparkfun! Your products and service absolutely rock, and I look very
forward to the next thing that you and I build together. :)

Regards, Ryan

You rock Ryan! Thank you so much for sharing your story! I wish we could all look so valiant in front of our loved ones. I am more likely to get a 'you're crazy' look as opposed to a 'you're a genius' look. Our hat is off to you sir!

Similarly, I made my boyfriend a very simple desk lamp because his study space was…well, terrible! He’s taking Law and I’m taking Product Design and Technology.
Instead of being impressed he decided it was a threat to his masculinity. And here’s a man doing the same thing and being called a genius. It amuses me.

I really dig the creative use of the blank CD holder for the project case. Did you know SparkFun sells a handy dandy clear project casing? I’m sure you did, AWESOME ingenuity, I wish my girlfriend would call me a genius! I vary from “idiot” to “stupid”. Typical.

Yeah it starts out with “you’re a genius”. After a few years I’m lucky to get a blank stare and a “that sounds cool”.
But then you have kids. They not only think your a genius, but they’re fascinated with your projects and they come up with their own. “Daddy can we build a boat with a motor for the new pool?”. Hell yeah we can.

SparkFun is an online retail store that sells the bits and pieces to
make your electronics projects possible. Whether it's a robot that can
cook your breakfast or a GPS cat tracking device, our products and
resources are designed to make the world of electronics more accessible.

In addition to products, SparkFun also offers
classes and online tutorials to help educate
individuals in the wonderful world of embedded electronics.